As in the original, the film follows the gloomy itinerary of solitary gun-for-hire Joe (Cage, who also co-produced), who, in the opening scene, takes out a high-profile target in Prague, then coldly eliminates his assistant via lethal injection.

This version of Bangkok Dangerous is a respectable genre movie, as our ruthless hit man is sent to Bangkok by a crime boss to carry out four assassinations. Once there, he falls for a deaf-mute shop assistant, Fon (Charlie Young) and, to further complicating matters further, forms an attachment to a young thief (an impressive turn by Thai actor Shahkrit Yamnarm).

He hopes these four contracts to be his last, but he quickly finds himself immersed in the city's corrupt and dirty lifestyle, which the filmmakers successfully project via neon-lit street shots and hyper nightclub scenes. The Bangkok sub-culture story delves deeper into a cleaner tourist's take on crime and corruption. Yet without the technical nastiness and fatal realism that made the original Thai version so exciting, this rendition feels like a lame excuse to present the various ways in which a bullet can pierce a skull, rather than an edgy portrait of the Asian world gone wrong.